William's P.O.V
"Someone you don't like is trying to talk to you." Blares loudly out of my phone. "I repeat, someone you can't stand is trying to hold a conversation."
I climb down from the small, step ladder in the shop with a string of curses escaping my lips. I had that ringtone set for all the contacts in my phone but Francis so the caller could be anyone.
Once on the floor, I pull my phone out and try to read the saved name. My failure to do so is equivalent to falling flat on your face. I tap the pulsing green phone icon and bring the phone to my ear, face distorting with quickly forming dread.
"Hello?" I say into the phone, my voice showing my disinterest.
"William!" My mother exclaims into the phone, offering unnecessary joy. "Oh, William! It is so good to hear your voice."
"Well not hearing it for a month might do that to you," I reply sarcastically, not bothering to hide my annoyance.
My mother hadn't spoken to me once since I left home. Not once.
Not a single call, text or transmitted message delivered through Francis. Nothing. I knew she wasn't my biggest fan, but I believed she was a good enough actor to pretend to be. Apparently, she couldn't even offer me that much.
It annoyed me that sometimes I forgot about her true nature, it upset me that I still wished for her to actually care about me.
It was a stupid hope. She only put the mask on when people were watching, only shed the tears when it seemed favorable for her. It slipped on from time to time when she wanted to convince even herself of her own act or when she needed practice.
I wondered which of those reasons she could be calling me for.
"I wanted to give you some space and time to settle in William." She replies calmly, pushing aside my anger the way she always did. "And Francis tells me every day that you're doing well."
Shouldn't it be the other way around?
"I'm busy right now mother, what do you want?" I ask getting right down to it.
"To talk to my son." She replies and my eyes roll the second I hear the trembling in her voice. "To make sure that you're doing okay out there on your own. You're blind and alone William."
"I hadn't noticed," I reply dryly before sighing deeply. "What do you want mother?"
"I don't want anything, nothing but to check up on you." She protests sounding chocked up. "But I was talking to Christine and she told me that Liam is returning home from university this Friday.
They're throwing him a dinner, isn't that lovely? It's absolutely brilliant. Anyway, Christine wanted to know if you would like to come as well, seeing as the two of you are best friends."
"No." I grind out before reaching for the record case I was wiping before she called. I press the phone to my shoulder and challenge myself, to multitask.
"William, you mustn't always be so crass." She drawls. "It's a lovely gesture to invite you, you shouldn't be so rude as to reject it. I've already had your flight booked, I expect you home by Friday."
"You can expect my shadow and cancel the flight because I'm not coming," I state clearly.
"William." She says in warning, somehow the tears clearing from her tone within moments.
"I am not going to fly home for a single dinner to show your friends and dad's partners that I'm alive, well and not gay. That's what you guys really want, don't even try to convince me otherwise. And for the last time mother, Liam and I are not friends."
"You are being dramatic William." She chides with a tired sigh. "It's time you got over yourself and started acting like an adult."
"After you," I reply icily and flourish in the silence which follows after.
"I have been putting up with your attitude because I know life has been hard for you William. But there comes a point when enough is enough." She says firmly from her end. "Your father needs you at this dinner and the Haynes' invitation is more than generous after your preposterous allegations. So you will get on that flight and come home."
I close my eyes. Focusing on breathing in the clean, peaceful air in the shop I'd grown to love and breathing out the bullshit, tainted air that my mother's voice produced. I let my body be swayed into a state of numbness coaxed by the music playing softly from the store's speakers.
"No," I say simply when I reopen my eyes. The blurred image I find awaiting me only solidifying my decision.
"William Evans, I am your mother a-"
"Then try acting like one," I say crisply to cut her off. "I am not coming to the dinner. Goodbye, mother."
I hang up before she can say anything further. My lungs contract and expand with every staggered breath, anger boiling its way up my veins as I shove my phone back into my pocket. I look around to smash something only to find nothing expendable. My eyes squeeze shut as I lean against one of the shelves, trying with all my strength to expel the misery which was creeping in behind the quickly building anger.
Preposterous allegations. They weren't allegations, they were the fucking truth and the fact that my own mother still sided with everyone but her own blood just made it all hurt more.
When the small bell above the stores sings, I glance up to see a pair enter together. I stand up straight, kicking away the thoughts of mother, returning back to the work I had to do. I clean the remainder cases, taking my place at the register when they were ready. When the couple leaves, my eyes follow, heartstrings tugging their favorite mocking tune.
I'd once longed for something like that. For some sort of affection between another person and myself, for a romance no matter how fleeting or permanent. Just a connection of some sorts. Now I couldn't imagine a worse fate for myself that to grow any sort of feelings for another human being.
I'd seen too much and been through too much to even put my fate or trust in another, and even if I managed to, I was a perfectly useless lover. I could never touch another without experience temporary heart failure and I couldn't spend a single moment in peace, my mind conjuring the worst scenarios to keep me on edge at all times.
It was one of the reasons I had no friends. I had Francis but he wasn't a friend, not really, he was working for the family and most of the time we spent together was paid for. Then there was Blue, he was lovely but he was my boss and too old to share any sort of tangible connection.
I'd had a friend once, a good friend. Liam Haynes, my best friend. I pull my eyes away from the shop door which it had found itself stuck on, intent on avoiding that name for as long as I possibly could.
I focus instead on preparing the shop for closing. Every day this week I'd closed the doors at three sharp and made my way home with urgency. Blue hadn't come in except for one brief meeting to check-in and apologize for the millionth time for leaving me hanging a few nights ago.
It'd turned out that Blue's wife had experienced a mild stroke on their way home from one of their outings, he'd rushed her to the hospital and stayed by her side the entire night. Too scared to even think about calling that night, which was understandable. From what I understand, the two had been married over thirty years and were going into the retirement stages together; the prospect of losing your other half, surely greater with age.
But he'd been unbelievably apologetic when he'd finally reached out and an absolute sweetheart ever since.
I did not make a big deal out of it. He was stressed enough as it was and I could hear the grief in his voice from the frightening altercation. He hadn't been into the shop for days, fawning over his wife who'd returned home a few days ago.
I ran the place as best as I could but went home before the sun came down. There was no way I was staying out late again and he respected that. I hadn't told Blue what happened, he didn't need to know. He'd apologize about hundred times already and deposited a little boost into my last paycheck to top it off.
So it was just me and Sassy. I jumped at the reminder, I'd put her outside half an hour ago to play and hadn't checked up since. I maneuver through the cluster of the back room, swinging the back door open only to smile widely at what I find. Sassy, in all her glory and prestige, was rolling around on the grass happily, tongue out and tail wagging as she followed a butterfly.
That was of course until I foolishly made an inhumane screech from the cuteness I was witnessing. She immediately stopped, rolling onto her stomach and tucking her tongue into her mouth to return to her usual unphased expression.
"I'll leave you to continue but you're not fooling me," I tell her but her expression stays the same. I laugh helplessly before returning to the shop, leaving her to be the weirdo she was in private.
I close up the shop before retrieving Sassy and a new record to try, smiling as I made my way home.
------
I push myself off the elevator wall once the doors part, letting Sassy run to the door while I take my time.
My ankle was improving, slowly but it was improving. I suppose it'd be a lot easier to just go to a doctor but I didn't need my mother being alerted by a card statement.
But if I was being honest with myself, I wasn't going slow for my ankle so much as for the guy who lived across from me.
There'd been a total of four events where I was either leaving or entering my apartment when Damon was leaving his own. I couldn't even bring myself to be suspicious of the coincidence when excitement roared up inside of me every time it did.
The conversations were always short and the same. We'd say hi, comment on what the other was possibly doing before Damon said something that made me laugh. Then we'd part.
It was sad but I'd begun to look forward to the little run-ins.
There was something about Damon which silenced my alarms. Something about him which made me feel a little less scared all the time. It wasn't only how easy going he seemed to be, or how he somehow managed to make me smile more than I had in months.
I figured it was because he had the opportunity too hurt me the night we met and hadn't, that choice washing over any future worries. But I knew somewhere deep inside that that wasn't all there was to it. There was more, just like there was more to him.
So I tried not to feel too much shame as I unlocked my door much slower than necessary. Taking way too long to close it when it was clear then there wouldn't be a meeting today.
I lean against the back of my door, slamming a hand over my face with embarrassment pooling inside of me.
What the fuck was I doing? We hung out one time and I was already trying to make a friend out of him.
I bend down to unhook Sassy's leash, allowing her to go straight to her bed. I pull myself to my kitchen, peeling a banana before taking a large bite of it.
I wanted to spend time with Damon again. It'd been fun last time we had, we'd gotten along much better than I assumed we ever could and I found myself actually enjoying his company.
The time we'd spent together and every meeting ever since was like a drop of cold water to parched lips. Just having someone to talk to was slowly restoring the desert of loneliness which had spread in leaps and bounds ever since the incident.
Tasting it made me want more.
But I wasn't sure how to approach Damon without appearing to be trying to make a move. I didn't want him thinking I was coming on to him or asking him out, I just wanted to hang out as neighbors and potential friends.
I could just go and ask if he was free and wanted to eat together, after all, I'd promised to cook. Something I'd agreed to with my mind in a drunken haze wanting more company at any cost. Even if that cost was having him possibly discover my disability which he surely would if I cooked.
It took longer than it naturally would for me to cook a decent meal. I had to be very careful with my hands, not knocking things over burning myself or cutting my fingers off. It was difficult to know when something was ready without being able to see it and required a lot of attention.
I could always cook first and then ask after but what if he ate in that time. I couldn't have him wait in my apartment while I cooked, hed see and I couldn't have him wait in his own, that'd be weird.
It was just hanging out. It seemed so simple yet it wasn't.
All the trouble would go away if I just told him about my eye problems. I just had to tell him I couldn't see well and all these problems would fade away.
But I knew from experience they'd only produce more.
First, the pity would tumble out, presented by silence as they took it all in and stamped me as disabled. Next would be the questions, the worse of them all being the first; What happened?
The single question over the last seven months had quickly become the two words I hated more than anything else in this world. Two words that had the ability to relaunch me into a dark abyss of my greatest failures, two words that stung almost as much as the famous 'are you okay?'.
The process was one that I'd endured time and time again, exhausting me at the thought of repeating it. Damon was no different from all the rest, he'd repeat the process and amputate the stemming friendship between us. All because I was too fucked up, too scared to just
Maybe this was all a sign. If I wasn't capable of being the first the reach out then I wasn't ready for a relationship of any kind. Plus, I was probably already getting ahead of myself by putting such unwarranted expectations based off of a single meal together.
I sigh as I drag my feet to my record player, putting in today's album and sinking into the low chair that allowed me to pet Sassy without straining to.
I close my eyes and let my mind be lulled into a state of acceptable comfort.
----
Filler chapter? Yes, but life. We can't just have Damon and Will 24/7.
Lol, thoughts?? Slowly getting more pieces of Will's past.
I want more action but the last few chapters have been a bit full, so the little dip is neccessary.
Vote and comment as you please.
Please note I am not required to update everyday and have never promised to. Do not expect me to update everyday, it's just for a time and when that slows, please respect that. I got some rather... entitled messages for not uploading yesterday and that just annoyed me.
I never promised everyday, so don't expect it. Just wanted to put that out there. Sorry if it sounded bitchy or angry.
Until next time,
Byeeeeeee humanssss